The Debt: A Good Effort With a Great Cast

This is the final installment of Movies I Watched On My Voyage To India. The reason I left this movie for last is because I actually forgot I had seen it on the plane until now. Chalk it up to the Ambien and jet lag - I'm hoping it isn't early-onset dementia.

The Debt follows the story of three Mossad agents (Mossad is the Israeli intelligence agency) who were part of a mission in 1965 to find the Surgeon of Birkenau, a Nazi doctor who conducted horrific human experiments during the Holocaust but went unpunished and continues to live a safe and prosperous life in East Berlin. The agents are David (Sam Worthington, giving a very understated and compelling performance), Rachel (Jessica Chastain in one of her many marvelous performances this year), and the mission leader Stefan (Martin Csokas, who makes this character hard to love but hard to hate). The movie begins as the three agents return to Israel, and in scenes set later in 1997, we find that they are still lauded as heroes and Rachel's daughter is publishing a book that describes their mission. We are shown the events of that night, but the thrill of the film comes later as we start to understand that the accepted account of this mission might not be wholly accurate.

As if the trio playing the young agents isn't impressive enough, the actors playing the aged agents in 1997 are a powerhouse of acting talent. Helen Mirren plays the older Rachel, who doesn't like to talk about the mission, least of all with her daughter, while Tom Wilkinson plays Stefan, Rachel's now ex-husband and father of her daughter, who has provided all the details that have made their way into the book. Ciaran Hinds rounds out the trio as David - I won't divulge his fate here, because his relationship with Rachel, both in 1965 and later after the mission, form an essential part of the narrative.

The movie completely dupes you into believing that what you saw was real, and then turns the tables. I felt rather gullible for believing the evidence of my eyes, but alas you can't always trust what you see. The story is urgent and intriguing, and your desire to discover the truth will keep you engaged even during the bits that are more ploddingly-paced. The film does get a little out of hand towards the end when we wholly return to the present and Helen Mirren gets to engage in some action sequences of her own. At that point things start to drag and you're ready for matters to reach a rapid resolution. But the scenes set in the past are exciting, both in terms of the slick execution of the mission to kidnap the doctor and also when you observe the taut and confusing relationships between the three agents as they try to figure out their own complex motives and emotions.

Ultimately, the movie has a good story and a stellar cast, but all the elements just don't come together in a perfect package. Perhaps the problem is that everything revolves around one twist, and once you are told what really happened that night in 1965, you have to sit back and just wait for the movie to end. The actors are doing their best to keep you invested in their characters, but even they can't keep you engaged until the bitter end. So I can't heartily recommend this movie, but neither can I dismiss it. It's one of those movies that are great to watch if it comes up on your cable line-up on a rainy day and you need to watch something without getting too involved. That's a tepid recommendation at best, but hey, you could do a lot worse.

The 1965 trio, steeped in terror and turmoil

Thor: Magnificently Mindless Fun

Another year, another Oscars. Now that the Academy Awards, with their various joys and disappointments, are over, it is that time of year when moviegoers start looking forward to pure entertainment, summer blockbuster fare that asks nothing of you but to have a good time. As such, one of the movies I am greatly looking forward to is The Avengers, the superhero smorgasbord that will collect all the Marvel Comics superheroes that we've seen in individual films like Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, etc. and make them a crime-fighting force to be reckoned with. The main reason I am excited for this movie is because it is directed by the incomparable Joss Whedon. I never considered myself a big fan of the superhero genre, but was then shocked to discover that I've actually seen every movie about these heroes, except one. Determined to be fully educated before The Avengers comes out on May 4th, I steeled my resolve and sat down to watch Thor.

I really did not want to watch Thor when it first came out (which is why I didn't), because it looked ridiculous. Despite being a commercial success, it didn't appear to be much loved by critics, who considered it weak fare amidst the abundance of superhero movies that we've had from Marvel Studios. Therefore, when I watched this movie last night, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself actually enjoying it. This is no Batman Begins or earnest superhero movie-making, but it wholeheartedly falls into the category of mindless summer fun that keeps you entertained for two hours and gives you some laughs besides. There are jokes sprinkled throughout the film that greatly liven up the proceedings and the strength of this movie really appears to lie in the fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Unlike most superheroes, Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth, the next big Australian import) starts out as a hero, the Norse God of thunder who is the son of Odin, the King of the Gods. Right when Odin is about to step down and hand the kingdom to Thor, however, events transpire that lead Thor to stir up a war with the Frost Giants who are the arch enemies of the Gods. Odin is able to settle things, but Thor's arrogance and general brattiness are too insufferable and Odin strips him of his powers and his hammer (yes, his main superpower is that he flies around with a hammer) and banishes him to planet Earth. This is a bit of a reversal in the superhero genre, since our hero goes from hero to zero instead of the other way around. On Earth, he is found by a bunch of astrophysicists, one of whom is Natalie Portman, the inevitable love interest. The real fun though comes from Kat Dennings who plays Darcy, a student who is interning with these astrophysicists and delivers hilarious one-liners with aplomb as she lusts after Thor. What follows is a lot of confusion and the eventual realization that Thor is in fact who he says he is, followed by various attempts to help him get his hammer and his powers back. 

The movie is a lot of fun when it tackles Thor stumbling through Earth and offending the inhabitants, but things get a little dreary when we go back to Asgard (where the Gods live) and deal with the treachery of Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston, the next big British import) who is Thor's brother and has been scheming to take control of the kingdom. The special effects make Asgard look uber-futuristic as opposed to medieval and quaint as is usually expected of heavenly kingdoms, but the ethereal lighting and crazy locations all look spectacular, and I'm sure they looked great on the big screen. Everyone thought Kenneth Branagh was an odd choice to direct this movie, but I think the British virtue of self-deprecation plays an important role in constructing a serviceable movie that doesn't pretend to be high art and easily straddles the line between comic farce and high-octane drama.

If you go into this movie expecting high-concept excellence like something out of the Batman franchise, you will be sorely disappointed. Just watch Thor to have a little fun and you'll enjoy yourself. Thor will be back in The Avengers and then in a sequel set to drop in 2013, so we're not free of this franchise for a while yet. Superheroes are becoming a staple of our summer movie schedule and you might as well embrace the swashbuckling drama, tight costumes, inane dialogue, and hilarity that ensue.

Here is the marvelous Superbowl trailer for The Avengers. Get excited!

Puss in Boots: Purr-fectly Mediocre

Once upon a time, great animation was the only thing an animated film needed to wow audiences. I saw Shrek 2 in the theatre, and although I enjoyed it, the only thing I remember about that movie is a spectacular scene when the land of Far Far Away is covered in pure driven snow and everything glittered and sparkled and looked so real that it took my breath away. But now, in the time of Pixar and motion capture, we are so used to top-tier animation with tireless attention to detail and realism, that we judge animated movies not just by their aesthetic but by the actual narrative. And that is where Puss in Boots fails miserably.

I saw Puss in Boots on one of the many flights I took on my India trip (I seem to have made terrible in-flight entertainment choices). Since it's up for an Oscar, I figured I must do my duty and give it a chance. Boy was that a mistake. The story follows Puss in Boots (voiced by Antonio Banderas) who is the character we've all come to know and love from the Shrek franchise, courtesy of DreamWorks Animation. He's a fluffy cat capable of disarming enemies with his big liquid eyes that make him look like a defenseless kitten, and the next minute he's slashing them with a sword and running off with their money. This movie continues the Shrek trend of bringing in characters made popular in fairy tales and nursery rhymes, so we're introduced to Puss's friend Humpty Dumpty, who grew up with Puss in the orphanage where they were both raised. Jack & Jill are the villains who are making off with some magic beans, and the movie revolves around Puss finding the beans and helping Humpty climb the beanstalk to get to the goose that lays the golden eggs. There's also a brand-new character, the nauseatingly-named Kitty Softpaws (voiced by Salma Hayek) who doesn't start off on good terms with Puss but is our hero's inevitable love interest.

That's all I can tell you about the film. I did watch the whole thing but it was so forgettable and pointless that it's not even worth delving into more of the story. There are twists and turns as you discover that Humpty may have dark ulterior motives, and you get Puss's entire life story, but none of it is particularly compelling. Before long you are looking at your watch and saying, "Really? There's still an hour left of this movie?" Unfortunately, the movie was a success at the box office because children have so few options these days that any PG film is a huge box office draw, and this means that the sequel is already underway. I can guarantee the sequel will be yet another example of lazy storytelling and stale jokes, banking solely on box office numbers to impress studio executives with a ton of money without any thought for creative innovation. Welcome to Hollywood.

By the end of Puss in Boots I was flabbergasted that anyone would choose to nominate this trite mess over something as masterful and groundbreaking as The Adventures of Tintin. But no one ever said the Oscars make sense. The reason Pixar will always be my go-to animation studio is because they have always given their stories and characters just as much attention as their animation. There's a reason they only come out with one movie a year. So save yourselves the trouble and give Puss in Boots and DreamWorks Animation a pass. You should wait for Pixar's Brave this summer, which is bound to be a far more spectacular example of what makes an animated movie Oscar-worthy.

 (This is the Brave trailer. Because I cannot bear to subject anyone to more Puss in Boots.)

In Time: High Concept Sci-Fi, Hollywood Style

Yet another movie I saw on my interminable flight from India was In Time, the Justin Timberlake-Amanda Seyfried film that came out in October 2011. I was pretty interested in this movie because dystopian sci-fi is a genre that never fails to appeal to me, but under the onslaught of Oscar movies, I forgot all about it. Well, I got my chance to see it last week and it was both interesting and disappointing.

First off, the concept is great. Out of the mind of writer-director Andrew Niccol, this is the story of a world where humans have essentially discovered the Fountain of Youth. They have been genetically modified to stop aging past the age of 25, but as with all good things, this comes with a price. Yes, you will look like you're 25 for the rest of your life, but you are also in charge of determining how long the rest of your life will be. Once you turn 25, a timer on your arm starts counting down one year, and you have to earn more time to keep your time from running out. The saying, "time is money" is now a fact, with time being the sole currency. Except when you run out of it, you can't just declare bankruptcy - you'll just drop dead. This means the rich can live forever, while the poor drop like flies if they can't earn enough time to keep them going past their 26th birthday.

The hero of this story is Will Salas (Timberlake) a factory worker who lives with his 50-year old mother (Olivia Wilde, who of course looks 25 and could be Timberlake's girlfriend, which is mildly confusing) in a poor ghetto-like neighborhood. After a series of events, he finds himself in possession of over 100 years of time, given to him by a rich man who is sick of being essentially immortal. After his mother's untimely death (pun intended), Will decides he needs to exact vengeance upon the ultra-rich who keep all the time for themselves and let the poor struggle for every second. The city is divided up into time zones that demarcate where the rich and poor live - Will lives in Time Zone 12 (oddly reminiscent of the Hunger Games' District 12), and as he travels to the richer zones, he has to pay stiff tolls of up to a year to get to New Greenwich, where the ultra-rich immortals reside. He crashes a party thrown by a rich guy whose daughter, Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), is a jaded, spoiled, rich kid looking for some excitement. Of course, she gets more than she bargained for when Will is forced to take her hostage in order to flee from the Timekeepers, i.e. the cops, who are hunting him down because they are convinced that he obtained his extra time illegally.

The rest of the movie proceeds as you would expect. Car chases, showdowns, bank robberies, meandering exposition on the plight of the poor and how they are being exploited by the rich. This is really just a story about class differences in our society today and how the world is run by the rich elite who impose their whims on the poor and get away with it. Of course, Will and Sylvia team up to bring justice, Robin Hood-style, and are essentially a Republican's worst nightmare.

Like I said, the premise is fantastic and there's a lot of wordplay that reveals just how many expressions we have that involve the word "time." Unfortunately, Andrew Niccol would have been better off writing a novel to express his ideas than making a movie. Hollywood cannot handle overly complex plots and ideas without lumping a film into a box, so in the case of In Time, what you get is an action movie with high-minded dialogue for those who are paying attention. It's mostly flash and little substance. The actors do the best they can, but they're just thrust into innumerable action sequences (poor Amanda Seyfried spends 90% of her time running in excruciatingly painful-looking heels), and when they do get to talk, they deliver entirely too much earnest exposition that grates on you after a while. We get it, it's unfair for the rich to take advantage of the poor, and we need an uprising to redistribute the wealth. Stop beating the issue like a dead horse and get on with it already.

Ultimately, In Time is great for about a half hour as the plot is explained and the world is realized. But after that, it devolves into standard Hollywood blockbuster fare. There are snippets throughout the movie to explain how things work in this world and to give you a sense of the scope of this dystopian future. I suspect Niccol slipped those in there for those of us with a brain who were still watching. But if you want a film that truly engages you all the way through, this is not for you. Go read The Hunger Games instead.

Seyfried & Timberlake: Running for their lives for the umpteenth time

Code Year: Time to Enter the 21st Century

Today is Monday, which means I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my next Code Year lesson in my e-mail inbox. OK, so my life is not that exciting. But my sole purpose today is to convince readers to give Code Year a try and see if they can garner some valuable skills to help them deal with our computer overlords in the future.

I first learned about Code Year via this Slate article by Farhad Manjoo on January 4th. Intrigued, I decided to sign up. Ever since then, I happily click on the link that arrives in my inbox on Monday afternoon and spend a few hours (or on some occasions, a day or two) excitedly or frustratingly learning JavaScript. And that is the essence of Code Year. It is a brilliant idea by the people at Codeacademy, a startup that designs innovative web tutorials, to teach people the basics of programming so that they can get in step with the 21st century. After all, we all use computer programs. Isn't it about time we learnt how they worked?

I am not a computer whiz but I can fix most problems with some assiduous Google searches and the confidence borne out of a lifelong familiarity with computers. But like most people, I have been marvelously content to take programming for granted. When a website asks me to enter in some information or performs a calculation, I have no need to know what code it is using to execute these functions. The end-result is all that matters, the inner workings are a mystery. But now Codeacademy is demystifying those inner workings and giving you the chance to enter the digital age. Through their tutorials, they aim to teach you how to code and make your computer run all those behind-the-scenes programs. Because in this day and age, JavaScript and other computer languages are just as important as English or Mandarin.

I've already professed my love for learning new languages, like when I started learning Welsh. Perhaps it makes sense that Code Year came about at a time when I had just finished my Welsh course and needed a new project. But while Welsh is a fun skill that I will almost never use, programming is a deadly useful skill that is practically a necessity. Ours is a world that is completely run by computers, and knowing how to "talk" to them is quickly becoming an essential skill that could help you in a variety of ways. In my blog post about Say Something in Welsh, I jokingly said that at the very least a knowledge of Welsh would be an interesting factoid on your resume. Well, if you say you know JavaScript, that resume's going to positively sparkle.

Today is the 6th week of Code Year, which means there is plenty of time for you to sign up and get caught up with all the lessons. Some lessons go by in a flash, while others have more of a learning curve, but the tutorials are methodical and wonderful.  They also keep improving every week as the people in charge carefully consider user input and ensure that they review topics as needed. I've enjoyed the lessons tremendously and love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I successfully construct an object, declare a variable, or program a rudimentary blackjack game. I can already talk semi-knowledgeably (or half-assedly if you tend towards sarcasm) about ternary operators, bracket notation, and object-oriented programming, topics that were utterly alien to me in 2011.

By now you have probably given up on a ton of New Year's Resolutions. So why not take up a new resolution that will serve you well in 2012 and head on over to Code Year? It might be the smartest thing you do all year. 

Mausam: Bollywood At Its Ridiculous Best

I'm back from India at last, so I am trying to come up with blog posts while I simultaneously catch up on all the TV I've missed over the past 2 weeks. To kick things off, I thought it only fair to begin with a review of a Hindi movie I saw on my flight back to NYC. I had no real desire to watch Mausam when it came out in the fall of 2011, but considering I was trapped on a plane for 8 hours, I figured I might as well give it a shot.

Mausam revolves around a boy and girl in Punjab who fall in love (of course) but then face various obstacles (again, of course) that make it unlikely that they will ever be together. The film's leads are Shahid Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor (no relation), who do a fine job. Shahid in particular is a strong presence, morphing from a fun-loving Punjabi villager named Harinder "Harry" Singh to a sophisticated Air Force pilot who can confidently attend Mozart concerts in Edinburgh without looking ridiculous. I have always been ambivalent about Sonam Kapoor, who often strikes me as an Indian version of Paris Hilton, but she is remarkably toned down in this film and gives a fairly earnest performance as Aayat, a displaced Kashmiri girl who is one minute wearing a burkha and the next minute studying ballet in Scotland. So, the acting is just fine, but the story gets progressively more illogical and laughable as you continue. Which really, is the hallmark of most Bollywood cinema.

After Harry and Aayat meet in Punjab, they quickly become star-crossed lovers who are continually thwarted by outside circumstances. Aayat is suddenly whisked off to Mumbai and then Edinburgh when her father's Kashmiri friends are targeted by terrorists. Meanwhile, Harry gets his papers to join the Air Force and becomes a pilot. The movie is set in the 1990s, so I don't quite understand why communication provides such a huge obstacle for this couple, but they keep forgetting to write each other letters and no one seems to have an answering machine so it is all very complicated. They reunite in Edinburgh, rekindle their romance, and then the very night that Harry is supposed to meet Aayat's family and discuss getting married, he is called by the Air Force to fight the war in Kashmir. Again we are faced with a ludicrous series of failed telephone calls, discarded letters, misunderstandings, and lack of voicemail that make one wonder how anyone ever spoke to anyone before the age of the Internet.

But even these improbable plot points pale in comparison to the film's eventual ending, 2 hours and 40 minutes later. What started out as a fairly romantic and ambitious movie that featured some solid acting, beautiful cinematography, and slightly absurd but still tolerable storylines, quickly devolves into the insanity one can expect from a Hindi film that has hurtled past the 2-hour mark. Our lovers are reunited in Ahmedabad, but not in any subtle or whimsical fashion. No, they find each other in the midst of a riot as the city burns around them and Harry rescues Aayat from a group of men intent on killing her. Did you see that coming? Because I certainly didn't. But I would have been willing to let even that go, if it wasn't for the fact that this is followed by a scene where they enter a burning fairground, see a child trapped on a Ferris wheel, and subsequently launch into a sequence where Harry climbs the wheel to rescue the child. Oh and did I mention that he only has one functioning arm since the other one got paralyzed during an Air Force mission?

Ordinarily I would be angry and disappointed that I spent almost 3 hours watching this movie only to be presented with an ending this crazy. But, a Hindi movie's secret is its ability to slowly ramp up the crazy, so that when you get to the utterly insane ending, you skip past feeling angry and only laugh at how absurdly everything has been wrapped up. The movie started out perfectly normally, but as it got progressively weirder, I was still locked in because I wanted to know if and how Harry and Aayat would get together. So although the ending was thoroughly ridiculous, I was still somewhat satisfied because I at least knew what happened to them, which was my only goal for the past 160 minutes.

Bollywood cinema is all about lowering your expectations. You can't expect anything earth-shattering every time you watch a Hindi movie. Sometimes you'll get lucky and see a movie that truly moves you and is perfect from beginning to end. But most often, you'll get something like Mausam, which sufficiently intrigues you at the beginning and then drags you to a pathetic conclusion at the end. When you finish, you'll wish you hadn't bothered to watch it in the first place, but then you'll remember that you didn't have anything better to do anyway. So here's my hearty recommendation: if you're stuck on a plane and need to while away a few hours, this is the movie for you. Otherwise, don't even think about it.

Shahid and Sonam Kapoor: trying to strut their stuff as the plot comes crashing down around them

The Artist: A Silent Tribute to Cinema

After months of seeing it get nominated and snag Best Picture awards all over the place, I finally saw The Artist. This is the black & white silent film that is an ode to the movies from the golden age of Hollywood and together with Hugo, it has established 2011 as the year that celebrated the art of cinema. Hugo, with its 3D effects and stunning colors is almost the polar opposite of The Artist, but both declared that movies really are magical things and they sure have come a long way.

The Artist begins in 1927, when silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin who has rightly picked up some Best Actor statuettes for his expressive and delightful face that seems tailor-made for silent film) is at the height of his career and runs into aspiring actress, Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, with a face and dance moves that make her equally deserving of her Supporting Actress nominations). Through a combination of luck and talent, Peppy makes her way through the Hollywood ladder, starting as an extra in one of Valentin's films, winding her way through bit parts, supporting roles, and finally starring in her own pictures. In 1929, the studio where the two actors work decides to focus solely on making talkies, a move that Valentin scoffs at. He thinks talking pictures are ridiculous and he walks out of the studio, determined to make his own silent movie that will be a huge hit and prove the studio wrong. His movie releases on October 25th, 1929, right opposite Peppy's splashy talkie, and no guesses as to which one draws the better box office.

I hope you paid attention to the date of that movie release. A few days later, the stock market crashes, George is a ruined man, and a movie that started out on an effervescent Singin' in the Rain note, now enters more dramatic territory. George is reminiscent of Norma Desmond, the forgotten silent movie actress in Sunset Boulevard, and he quickly descends into a boozy haze of self-pity and indignation at how quickly he has been forgotten. Meanwhile Peppy's star is on the rise, but she never forgets George, the man who gave her her first break in Hollywood and who she still loves.

The movie goes through many melodramatic plots and contrivances that get our romantic leads back together again. And of course, this all takes place with no accompanying dialogue except for what you can figure out if you're a decent lip-reader or read off the title cards that punctuate the movie. I have to confess, I could predict almost every single plot point before it took place (maybe it's because of all the Bollywood movies I've seen that go through the roller-coaster comedy to melodrama to comedy route) but since it is all contained within a tight 90 minutes, it never gets dull. Instead, you are completely captivated by the acting in this film. These actors do so much with their faces and bodies that hearing them speak would almost be annoying. Berenice Bejo's nominations are worth it for one scene alone when she finds herself in Valentin's dressing-room and has a romantic interlude with his coat that's hacking on a rack. Jean Dujardin radiates charm as a handsome leading man and then seethes with palpable despair and anger as a ruined nobody. Of course, the film's score is a highlight, taking up all the slack for the lack of dialogue and keeping you well-acquainted with the tone and mood of every scene. It has to win the Oscar because what other film this year has needed to rely so heavily on the music?

Before you think that this is just another silent movie though, the film does take advantage of the fact that it is being made in 2011. After all, silent movies in the 1920s couldn't discuss the talkies, since there were no talkies to discuss. There is a wonderful sequence right after George learns about the studio's decision to make talkies - he has a nightmare where he can hear everyone and everything, but he himself has lost his voice. This marvelously captures the anguish of all those faded silent movie stars who were so popular when they couldn't speak, but were later rudely cast aside because no one wanted to hear them talk. And the ending of this movie was expected but delightful, heralding the kind of movies that became popular in the 1930s.

The Artist is an ingenious film because it covers a variety of genres, alludes to several famous scenes and characters in movie history, and does all of this while still being a silent film. It manages to be completely accessible to a modern audience, while still retaining the look and feel of a movie from the 1920s, and I can't quite figure out how it achieved this feat. It truly is a marvel and I can finally understand why it has received so much acclaim.

One final note. I have now seen every Best Picture nominee (that's a lie, I haven't seen Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but seriously, who's counting that one?) and I can officially decide who I would give Best Picture to. And after a great deal of thought, I surprised myself. My pick is The Descendants. I loved Hugo and The Artist, both front runners for this race, and I wouldn't be upset if either of those movies won. But ultimately, a movie that tells me that movies are great is not what I need, because I already knew that. I need a movie like The Descendants, which is beautiful, human, funny, emotional, and perfect. Of all the nominated movies this year, this one made me truly appreciate going to the movies. What more can I ask for?